Game Templates In UE4

04-11-2014, 11:19 AM

Hey there guys! Today, senior environment artist Warren Marshall has put together a really sweet intro post on all of the game templates you can find in UE4. Enjoy!
Usually when you get a great idea for a game, you need to spend time plugging in boilerplate code and assets to get a player character into the world so you can move around and start prototyping the FUN stuff. This is where templates can help!

What Are Templates?

Templates are very basic game containers that you can start your project with to give you a leg up on getting to what you really want to be working on - your gameplay ideas! They come in two flavors: there is a C++ version if you're comfortable working at that level and there is a blueprint version which is going to be the best choice for most users as it will allow for faster iteration by designers and artists.

How To Use Templates

When you launch Unreal Engine 4, navigate to the "New Project" tab.

Once there, you'll see a list of project templates you can use. The first few in the list are great for starting with an empty project but scroll down a little and you'll find a few more exciting options! Let's look at the Blueprint First Person template.

Selecting this template and clicking "Create Project" gives us a basic game template for creating a first person shooter. When the editor loads, click the "Play" button on the toolbar and you'll see something like this:

And just like that you have a great jumping off point for starting to work on your gameplay ideas!

For example, look inside the "Blueprints" folder that was created for this project and double click the "MyCharacter" blueprint. Inside of here is everything you need to make your character move, jump and shoot projectiles.

Try changing things and see how the game reacts! A great way to learn how things work is to change things interactively. Blueprints are great for fast iteration so try changing a value or two and hit "Play" again. Your changes will be in the game and you can see what they do right away.

Other Templates

We've included some other templates as well. There's one for a third person game, a top down game and a side scroller game. Try them all and see what appeals to you the most and try to build on it.

We have a lot of ideas for game templates so this list will be growing as we move forward.

Have fun! And don’t forget to comment below with any questions you might have!

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@Alex3D: That's slightly more specialized although a few people did get some amazing wall-climbing code going in the Beta. I'll scour the forums and see if I can find you a few names you can ask for help

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@Alex3D: That's slightly more specialized although a few people did get some amazing wall-climbing code going in the Beta. I'll scour the forums and see if I can find you a few names you can ask for help

It would be great if Epic would make the Beta forums available to those of us who were not so lucky to gain Beta access, hope their tuning in

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I would love to see a template with the very basics of a turn-based strategy game (a* pathfinding, creating a grid, selecting and moving units etc.). XCOM shows how viable it is to create such a game using UE. Templates like this, and for other genres that are perhaps not always closely associated with UE would be a great way to show off the flexibility of the engine. To be fair I am of course mostly trying to persuade you into making exactly what I am personally in need of, but I think many people would be interested in templates for diverse genres.

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@Alex3D: That's slightly more specialized although a few people did get some amazing wall-climbing code going in the Beta. I'll scour the forums and see if I can find you a few names you can ask for help

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I too would very much like to see a strategy template, as i would very much like to try my hand at making an RTS, but my knowledge of C++ is horrible, and the strategy demo that comes with UE is more tower defense than actual rts.

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I too would very much like to see a strategy template, as i would very much like to try my hand at making an RTS, but my knowledge of C++ is horrible, and the strategy demo that comes with UE is more tower defense than actual rts.

Also working on an RTS Game, you may want to try the Top down camera Blueprint template as a starting point although it has a long way to go to become a fully fledged RTS game.

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I'd want to see an RPG template that features looting, inventory management, skills, skillbar, etc.. Basically the basics of any RPG. I think we really need solid "Big 3" though. A full blown RPG template, FPS template (with ledge grab as suggest above, parkour features, etc..), and RTS template. With all 3 I think you could EASILY attract a larger and larger crowd as it significantly shrinks the learning curve.

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I'd want to see an RPG template that features looting, inventory management, skills, skillbar, etc.. Basically the basics of any RPG. I think we really need solid "Big 3" though. A full blown RPG template, FPS template (with ledge grab as suggest above, parkour features, etc..), and RTS template. With all 3 I think you could EASILY attract a larger and larger crowd as it significantly shrinks the learning curve.

Advanced templates are nice and all but I dont see people wanting to learn much blueprint if everything is going too be given too them. Then I would just see a flood of the same game's all using the same templates. I love the templates already and I would rather learn how too do them things then just get it given too me with learning nothing just my person opinion. When things are given too you, you tend to be lazy. Also all these things you people are asking for I see a lot of them already in all the examples you just have to put two and two together

These templates are going to come from the community at some point.

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I'd want to see an RPG template that features looting, inventory management, skills, skillbar, etc.. Basically the basics of any RPG. I think we really need solid "Big 3" though. A full blown RPG template, FPS template (with ledge grab as suggest above, parkour features, etc..), and RTS template. With all 3 I think you could EASILY attract a larger and larger crowd as it significantly shrinks the learning curve.

Definitely keep letting us know what templates you want to see moving forward. We're going to do more but bear in mind that the ones we provide are meant to be as minimal as possible. It will never be a case of "replace the art, ship game". Something like an RPG is pretty advanced for a simple template (not to mention VERY open to interpretation and style) but you never know.

As Meathead said, eventually users will be able to offer their own templates in the marketplace so once that opens up there should be a LOT more to choose from.

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As Meathead said, eventually users will be able to offer their own templates in the marketplace so once that opens up there should be a LOT more to choose from.

This is going to ultimately be the final nail in Unity's coffin. Epic has changed the game with the new model for UE4: Point for point Unity cannot compete (not even Unity 5, they are just getting around to adding a small set of features already available in UE4) , and almost everyone that uses Unity needs 3 or 4 extensions to it in the form of asset store addons to make it a complete solution. Don't forget the non-trivial stuff that UE4 has out of the box that Unity 5 still lacks: actual network replication and prediction with an authoritative server architecture, game behaviour trees and AI frameworks, material shader networks, and more.

The only thing missing is a central market place / asset store for the community to blow this whole thing wide open.

I've been making games professionally for over 15 years and it's been a long time since I've been this excited.

In a year from now the UE4 marketplace will be huge: you will be able to download asset libraries and game templates and frameworks that will get you started with any crazy genre you can imagine, RPGs, myth style RTSs, puzzlers, boards games etc, with just a few mouse clicks.

Definitely keep letting us know what templates you want to see moving forward. We're going to do more but bear in mind that the ones we provide are meant to be as minimal as possible.

This was mentioned in another post, but one template I would like to see would be something like "Slate Menu Shell" template. Just a project that had nothing else but a Slate main screen with "start game" and "exit" over a generic background image. The simpler the better. Maybe the "start game" launches a default map, and when "esc" is hit during that map it pauses the game and brings up a Slate overlay of "main menu" and "cancel" buttons.

Anyway just a thought. I see elements of this in existing game samples (Strategy Game, etc), but making an extremely bare-bones version as a template would make it easier to get your head around Slate (at least for me)